Calgary Flames vs Edmonton Oilers prediction: Devin Cooley's hot hand faces McDavid's Oilers in Battle of Alberta

Cooley against the machine

The first Battle of Alberta of the season pits the league's best offense against a goalie who has stopped almost everything lately. Edmonton scores 4.25 goals per game, 1st of 32. It does so without much volume: the Oilers rank 25th in shots per game but 1st in shooting percentage (goals per shot) at 16.6%.

That finishing runs through the usual names. Connor McDavid has 34 points in 12 games, and Leon Draisaitl already has 12 goals. Finishing rates like these rarely hold over a full season, but nobody has slowed them yet.

Devin Cooley is the probable starter for Calgary, and he's the reason this isn't a simple fade. His season save percentage sits at .915, and he has won each of his last four starts with a .955 mark. Dustin Wolf, at .834, has been a different story, which is why the Flames are expected to turn back to Cooley.

At the other end, Tristan Jarry is expected to start for Edmonton, with Devon Levi on injured reserve and Matt Tomkins recalled as the backup. Jarry carries an .869 save percentage, and the Oilers' team save percentage ranks 29th. Twelve games is a small sample for any goalie, but Edmonton has not yet found reliable saves.

Special teams tug-of-war

This is where the game could tilt fastest. Edmonton's power play converts 35.0% of its chances, 2nd in the league. Its penalty kill is the weak spot, stopping just 70.6% of opponents' power plays, 25th of 32.

Calgary is strong at both. The Flames' power play runs at 30.0%, 4th, and their kill sits 5th at 85.7%. The catch is discipline: Calgary ranks 31st in penalty minutes per game. Hand McDavid and Draisaitl extra chances and even a good kill gets tested. If the Flames stay out of the box, their own power play is built to punish a soft Oilers kill.

Edmonton's banged-up lineup

The Oilers are patching holes. Zach Hyman left Monday's shootout loss to Detroit in concussion protocol, and reports Tuesday suggested he could miss at least a week. The league report still lists him as day-to-day, so his status is unsettled, but Edmonton hasn't given a timeline.

There is help coming. Mattias Ekholm and Jason Dickinson were regular participants in Tuesday's practice, and their return looks promising, with the final call due Wednesday morning. Ekholm skated on the top pair with Evan Bouchard, and Tuesday's lines had Mattias Walman as an extra, with Dinar Mukhamadullin and Ty Emberson forming the third pair. Levi is out a few weeks.

Calgary got captain Mikael Backlund back Monday after he missed two games with an upper-body injury. Jonathan Huberdeau remains on injured reserve after hip surgery, and coach Ryan Huska said "he's not close right now." Sam Honzek is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury.

Form, history and the market

Wednesday closes Edmonton's five-game homestand, and Rogers Place hasn't been kind. The Oilers are 3-2-2 at home against 5-0-0 on the road, and they dropped the last two games of the stand, including a 7-2 rout by Toronto. Calgary arrives on a winning run, most recently a 5-2 win over the Maple Leafs, and covered the puck line as an underdog in every game of that streak. The Flames also won the last meeting, 4-3 in Calgary on Feb. 4.

The market still leans hard toward Edmonton: Oilers -218, Flames +180, with Edmonton -1.5 on the puck line. The total sits at 6.5, where it opened in our feed. Edmonton's games keep blowing past totals, going over 8 times in 12, while Calgary's have gone under 6 times in 11. Cooley's form against Edmonton's finishing is the question between those two tendencies.